David Gans Playing in the Band

A celebrated radio host by day and singer-songwriter by night, Gans is a storyteller 24/7, a member of the old school who sees music beyond the notes.

“I think music can change the world,” he said. “I came up in that day, and I still believe that. I’m not a heavy-handed political commentator … but one of those people who uses music to inspire people to be healthy and kind.”

As host of radio’s nationally syndicated The Grateful Dead Hour, Gans has delivered inspiration for 25 years. Celebrated as a “singer-songwriter-guitarist-radio producer/host-author-journalist-record producer-photographer,” Gans’ many talents fit together seamlessly.

“I was a musician from the time I was a kid,” said Gans, 56, adding that writing was always a driving force behind the sound.

Though always a writer, time spent in the ’70s as a musician-of-all-trades in San Francisco’s Bay Area led to life-changing opportunities in the writing world, when Gans took jobs for magazines like BAM and Jann Wenner’s Record. “All of which were great ways to find out more about music and meet people in this business,” he said.

This spawned a 10-year tour in the music news industry, an experience that enriched his own perspective of music through myriad interviews with such stalwarts of rock as Tom Petty, Rod Stewart, Pat Benatar, Leo Fender and the Grateful Dead.

This latter encounter prompted an enduring (and career-defining) friendship with America’s preeminent jam band, its all-encompassing approach toward music a perfect fit for Gans’s musical philosophy.
As a fan of the Dead, Gans sought out those stories in particular and, in 1977, scored an interview with rhythm guitarist Bob Weir.

“They recognized that I knew what they were doing and understood, so I made friends with various band members and other members of their team and family,” Gans said. “Just by being a supportive journalist, I was welcomed into their world.”

That spring, Gans promoted his work on a San Francisco radio program, The Deadhead Hour, putting together a set of defining songs to musically illustrate his work, when he realized this was something he really enjoyed. Gans took the helm that year, and The Grateful Dead Hourwas born.

“By then, I had sufficiently warm relations with various parts of the Grateful Dead world, that when the opportunity came up to syndicate the show, I took it,” Gans said.

But not without a blessing from the Dead.

“I started getting requests from other stations, asking if they could carry the show, too,” Gans said. “So, I went to my friends in the band and asked, ‘What do you guys think?’ They said, ‘It sounds like a good idea for everybody; just go for it.’

“None of this was by design, intention or even planned – it just happened. I had developed such relationships with these guys that I could get their support when I tried to do something. They trusted me, and (bassist) Phil Lesh made that explicit at one point: ‘You don’t have to call me to ask for permission to do this or that – if it’s worth putting on the air, we trust you.’ And that was a great feeling.”

Broadcasted on at least 82 stations, 75 radio and seven Internet-based, The Grateful Dead Hour features music from and inspired by the Dead, woven together with Gans’s firsthand stories from the Golden Road and interviews with musicians and other Grateful Dead luminaries.

And when it comes to the Dead, there’s never a shortage of music.

“I’ve been doing radio for the Grateful Dead for 25 years, and there’s never been a single moment in that whole time where I didn’t have a wealth of material to choose from … It’s a completely well-stocked pantry of great music – delicious and largely nutritious, too.”

And for Gans, music is a key ingredient and part of this complete breakfast.

“Music is my life, man,” he said, citing a talent that flourished from age 6 with the clarinet to guitar at 15 and beyond. “I guess I have some natural affinity for music, a good ear for learning melodies, picking up chords … I’ve always been driven to express myself that way.”

Gans came of age in the time of singer-songwriters, visiting music halls in San Jose, Calif., to sing the likes of John Denver, Cat Stevens, Jackson Browne and John Prine.

Growing up with songbooks from The Beatles’ “White Album” and Crosby, Stills and Nash’s self-titled album, Gans aimed to master the singer-songwriter dynamic. But in college, his roommate and songwriting partner introduced him to the Grateful Dead, “and that completely blew my world wide open,” Gans said. “But the thing that grabbed me (about the Dead) was the songwriting, a great catalogue of American music those guys put out.”

He calls it a musical university, one in which a student could spend the rest of his life exploring.
“But also bear in mind, I’ve been writing songs since I was 16,” he said. “So, I’ve never completely surrendered myself to being a fan of something else. Even though I’d been earning my living putting Grateful Dead music on the radio for 25 years, it was never more important than pursuing my own songwriting.”

In 1997, he released Home by Morning, a duet album featuring Gans and singer-songwriter Eric Rawlins, which was followed the next year by the well-timed single, “Monica Lewinsky,” by David Gans and the Broken Angels.

Five solo albums would follow, but Gans relishes his live performances the most, particularly the degree of spontaneity involved. At a Bears Picnic Festival in Pennsylvania, Gans wound up sitting in with just about every band there. “It was fun, and it’s nice being that kind of musician who people welcome into their sets as guests, which means I can pick up guests to play with, as well.”

One such guest was Phil Lesh, and Gans is considered responsible for rousing the world-renowned bassist from retirement.

“He had not played much … since Jerry (Garcia) had passed (in 1995),” Gans said. “I was working on a benefit … in the Bay Area, putting together a Grateful Dead jam for this event, and asked if he’d come and sit in.”

Lesh agreed, and the September 1997 show promptly sold out. David Gans and Broken Angels with Special Guest Phil Lesh played a couple more benefits, this time for Lesh’s Unbroken Chain Foundation, featuring a group of musicians unique to each performance.

“He liked the idea of a rotating cast of musicians, so he started doing the same thing under Phil Lesh and Friends,” Gans said. “He saw something he liked, then went and did it himself with some world-class collaborators.”

“World-class” is a fitting term for Gans’ own collaborators, including the New Riders of the Purple Sage, the late Vassar Clements, The String Cheese Incident and Peter Rowan. Gans recently joined Rowan’s younger brothers, Chris and Lorin, in Rubber Souldiers, a jam tribute to The Beatles.

“It’s a labor of love,” he said. “We call it a Beatles jam band, taking their songs and kind of stretching them out, because here’s the thing – The Beatles wrote some amazing songs with amazing melodies, chord changes and kick-ass grooves, and then they quit after three minutes. Come on, man, take that song and stretch it out and let people dance a while.”

But Gans’s solo shows promise dancing aplenty. Using a looping device, he’s able to accompany himself, as it were, by building simultaneous layers of guitar work. “It’s a way of allowing myself to improvise with myself,” he said.

Having originally intended the loop to serve as a rhythm guitarist, allowing him to experiment and improvise on lead, Gans realized its full potential.

“Take ‘Cassidy’s Cat,’ a whole bunch of themes from Grateful Dead songs I intertwine, put together in a fresh way,” he said.

His repertoire includes beaucoups of looping figures of his own device, though Gans also performs what he calls “the straightforward stuff,” having generated 40 years’ of songwriting material.

“I play a fresh set list every time, working from my own repertoire of original material and covers from others,” he said. “It’s a real-time performance, interacting with the audience, what feels right, what seems to get their attention. In other words, I’m doing it live like the Grateful Dead taught me, and telling stories, too.”

“It’ll be interesting to try doing things one song at a time for a while,” he said. “We’re at a moment in the history of music when all the old institutions are falling apart, so we have to find new ways to do things.

So far the shows with David Gans and friends in North Carolina Have been fantastic! Eric Crews, a reporter form the High Country times in Boone, came out to the Tuesday night show at the Rocket Club in Asheville after doing a phone interview with David early in the day. He shot some great video footage and posted a wonderful article:

Creator of The Grateful Dead Hour Talks About His Music, Travels

David Gans, the musical impresario behind The Grateful Dead Hour, a weekly radio show that covers all-things Grateful Dead, was driving north on Interstate 26 through the rolling hills of South Carolina en route to Asheville to play a gig when his phone rang. A reporter on the other end of the line wanted to know what the musician thought of the town of Boone during his last stop there seven years ago for a gig at a place Gans can’t remember the name of.

“When you’re on tour,” Gans explained, “you’re not really in a town, you’re kind of in a space capsule. Because, usually, you get there and you do the sound check and maybe you go the motel and then you go back and you do the gig and you get up the next morning and you go to the next gig. So a lot of times you go through places but you don’t really see them. I can tell you more about what I’ve seen on the highway than what I’ve seen in the towns in most cases.”

It is on the highway, in the midst of America and all the little nuances of everyday life on the road, that Gans finds his inspiration. Passing through small towns and stopping off in big cities, playing music with friends, meeting new people—all of these little things add up for Gans, and in the end, provide him with the incentive he needs to leave his home behind and strike out on tour for awhile.

“Being a musician is a terrible, terrible way to make a living,” he said. “Because it’s just really hard to make any money at it, but it’s a wonderful way to see the world,” Gans said, as the sound of the South Carolina wind blew through the car’s open window as he drove. “I’m driving right now in a rented car and, for me, the drives between stops on the tour are the chance to look at the planet and to check out the trees and the rocks. It’s a wonderful thing to be out in this beautiful country making music. It’s a glorious thing, really.”

When Gans is out on the road, traveling from town to town, he can’t help but to think back to the early years of the Grateful Dead and how it all got started for them.

“Jerry Garcia used to drive around the country listening to bluegrass music when he was a kid,” Gans said. “And then the Dead created this scene where young people would follow them around having adventures. Jerry said once, ‘Grateful Dead is one of the last great American adventures. It’s akin to running off joining the circus.’ So I love the festival circuit this time of year. You get to see a lot of the same people, and hear a lot of great music, and in between you get to connect with a lot of wonderful people.”

Back at home in California, when he isn’t on tour, Gans finds endless enjoyment in the simple things in his life like shopping at the Farmer’s Market with his wife, preparing home-cooked meals, and lounging with his two cats at their home near Oakland. “I feel incredibly fortunate that I’m able to have these great adventures out here in America and then go home to a life that I’m so happy with, too.”

While at home in Oakland, Gans is the host of a widely syndicated radio show, The Grateful Dead Hour. The show has aired more than 1,100 times, and over the many years has chronicled many of the incredible live performances by the Grateful Dead that have made them into the iconic symbol of the American touring band. Gans got his start with the Grateful Dead as a reporter assigned to cover the blossoming music scene of the late 1970s, and, according to Gans, the Grateful Dead was always his favorite band to cover. He first saw the Dead in 1972. “They really changed my understanding of songwriting and what music was all about,” Gans said. “I really learned a lot from the Grateful Dead.”

Part of what he picked up as a musician from the Grateful Dead was the importance of songwriting and song styling—learning quickly how merging the lyrics with the music could create synergy within the song.

“I grew up in an age when we all listened to the Beatles and thought we could change the world with songs. And I’m still trying to do that. I try to write songs about the real world that encourage people to look at the bright side,” Gans said. “Ultimately, I’m just a lover of great American music and I’m just trying to make a little of my own.”

Gans will be joined on stage this tour by a few of his friends, including Jay Saunders of Acoustic Syndicate on bass, Bobby Miller, a mandolin picker with a penchant for fast runs and Grateful Dawg-style strumming, and Mike Rhodes of the Blue Rags on drums. At a recent show in Asheville the group jammed their way through a bevy of classic American rock songs by artists such as Little Feat, Dire Straits and the Grateful Dead while getting down to a few of Gans’ originals. This combination of older classics merged with new originality is certain to hit a positive note with fans of eclectic Americana music.

The Mountain Times in Boone release this great article from an interview with David Gans for his upcoming show in Boone, NC at the Reel House Cinema on Friday, April 30th:

David Gans & Friends play the ReelHouse April 30

By Frank Ruggiero

David Gans has had a long career as a media multi-hyphenate: singer-songwriter-guitarist-radio producer/host-author-journalist-record producer-photographer. That he can juggle so many balls in the air is nothing short of astonishing; that he does it with such skill, passion, assurance, wit and grace is even more remarkable.

Known far and wide as the light behind the widely syndicated Grateful Dead Hour radio program, several books on the Dead and a number of intriguing CDs relating to the band and its music, Gans has in recent years developed a solid following nationwide for his compelling songs and music. In fact, despite the economic downturn, David says he’s had his best year ever out on the road.
“I’m having great gigs,” he said. “Creatively, I’m as satisfied as I can be. I’m in complete control of my own musical destiny and I’m doing it on my own terms. I don’t have any executives telling me they ‘don’t hear a single.’ I’m not at anybody’s mercy.”

Gans hopes to add another great gig to the list when he performs at the ReelHouse Cinema and Draft in Boone on Friday, April 30. He’ll be joined by friends and fellow musicians Jay Sanders on bass (Acoustic Syndicate), and Bobby Miller on mandolin (The Virginia Dare Devils), and other special guests.

Besides playing in all sorts of bands through the years—from the fondly remembered Reptiles to the Honky Tonk Hippies, to his recent forays jamming on Beatles songs with Chris and Lorin Rowan (and friends) in a group called Rubber Souldiers— Gans also sat in with an amazing range of fine musicians, such as Phil Lesh, Donna the Buffalo, Henry Kaiser, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Ollabelle, the late great Vassar Clements, Jim Lauderdale, The String Cheese Incident, Peter Rowan, and moe., to name just a few.

He has also written songs with a host of others, including Jim Page, Lorin Rowan, and Robert Hunter. And his live repertoire is peppered with an incredibly broad (and unpredictable) range of cover tunes by old and new musical heroes.

…
But he’ll also tell you that in recent years, as he’s toured extensively and played with so many superb musicians at festivals and in other settings, he’s discovered a whole new generation of songwriters and players who are inspiring him.

As both a player and a fan, he understands the indefinable transformative power of music—how it feeds our very life-force, bonds us together in obvious and unseen ways, teaches us, heals us, makes us better citizens of this fragile planet.

As David notes, “I came up in the time when we thought music could change world, and I still think it can—the only way the world can be changed: one person, one soul at a time.”

David Gans is starting off this weekend with a his run of Shows in North Carolina. He starts off at the Shakori Hills Festival in Silk Hope. Then he heads over to Asheville, Greensboro, Boone, and one secret surprise show that has not yet been announced. Check out this article from a recent interview with Ryan Snyder from Yes! Weekly in Greensboro:

‘Dead Hour’ DJ and guitarist gets a little help from friends for NC shows

Songwriter, DJ and Deadhead David Gans trips out east for a run of fullband shows (photo by Bob Minkin).

It’s been a long, strange trip for David Gans. The quirky, inventive guitarist and songwriter has affixed innumerable other designations to his name over his 40-year career, all in the course of just trying to write a few songs and play a few shows. Among them are writer and author — Gans was a music journalist who wrote for several San Francisco publications in the ’70s and has published books on the Grateful Dead and the Talking Heads. But Deadheads who like their doses — the musical kind mind you — straight from the heart know Gans as the founder and still-host of the long-running and widely syndicated “Grateful Dead Radio Hour.” Gans has been in the booth for over 1000 broadcasts and as of a recent YES! Weekly interview, was working on episode no. 1127, but his journey into the booth doesn’t quite play out like one might expect.

Gans saw his first Dead show in 1972 at the behest of his then roommate and songwriting partner and it was only a few months later, he said, that he started to get a handle on what the band was doing.

“I grew up on the Beatles and was a big fan of early ’70s singer/ songwriters, the acoustic pop/folk/rock back then. The Dead expanded my horizons, so I began to get more into playing guitar and improvising,” Gans said. “It also just made me realize that songwriting could be literature. You could write stuff with depth to that that took a little more work to engage it than the pop stuff that just kind of tells you everything it knows in the first couple of listens.”

A few years later, while promoting his book Playing In the Band in 1985, Gans went onto a local radio show to produce a series of documentaries for the station and eventually began contributing regularly. They eventually asked him to take over the show and after other stations expressed interest in carrying it, it led to the “Grateful Dead Hour”’s eventual syndication.

“Without ever making a plan to do so, I sort of wandered into this thing of being the producer and host and still am 25 years later,” Gans said. “I never lost interest making my own music or all the other music out there in the world, but it became a pretty fun way to make a living.”

Though he insists that he never became a full-blown Deadhead, the band’s influence is felt all throughout Gans’ own music, from his ragged, witty Americana lyrical repertoire to his brazenly adventurous solo stage act to the Dead covers he weaves into it with regularity. Gans has become both known and celebrated for his live looping techniques, playing the role of his own rhythmic accompaniment, but for an upcoming trek to the Southeast for a string of shows, Gans will be meeting up with a few friends from North Carolina for a somewhat rare run of full-band shows on the East Coast.

Among them are Donna the Buffalo keyboardist and Greensboro resident Dave McCracken, Donna the Buffalo and Acoustic Syndicate bassist Jay Sanders, Virginia Daredevils mandolin player Bobby Miller, Biscuit Burners steel player Bill Cardine and Blue Rags drummer Mike Rhodes, who Gans has never performed alongside. With such a talented cast behind him, Gans will be setting his loop station aside for this occasion for obvious reasons, though he will be teaching a looping clinic this Saturday afternoon at the Shakori Hills Festival. [Gans and Friends performs on Wednesday, April 28th at the Blind Tiger]

“When you’re playing with a looping device, it’s like playing with a musician who’s a real dick. It can’t hear you and it can’t adjust,” Gans emphasized.” When you’re playing with a human, nothing’s perfect of course, but everybody listens to each other and the feel for what you’re doing sort of adjusts. It’s also just much more fun when you’re playing live to have others with you.”

David Gans has had a long career as a media multi-hyphenate: singer-songwriter-guitarist-radio producer/host-author-journalist-record producer-photographer. That he can juggle so many balls in the air is nothing short of astonishing; that he does it with such skill, passion, assurance, wit and grace is even more remarkable.

Along with his stories and music, David has wrangles up a fine group of musicians to play with him while he is out this way: Jay Sanders on bass (Acoustic Syndicate), Dave McCracken on Keys (Donna the Buffalo), Billy Cardine on Dobro (Biscuit Burners), Mike Rhodes on Drums (The Blue Rags), and Bobby Miller on mandolin (The Virginia Dare Devils), amongst other special guests. There will be different configurations of musicians on the different days…

Known far and wide as the light behind the widely syndicated Grateful Dead Hour radio program, several books on the Dead and a number of intriguing CDs relating to the band and its music (see discography below), David has in recent years developed a solid following nationwide for his compelling songs and music. In fact, despite the economic downturn, David says he’s had his best year ever out on the road: “I’m having great gigs! Creatively, I’m as satisfied as I can be. I’m in complete control of my own musical destiny and I’m doing it on my own terms. I don’t have any executives telling me they ‘don’t hear a single,’” he laughs. “I’m not at anybody’s mercy.”

But “skilled solo performer” fills only one page of David’s artistic resumé. Besides playing in all sorts of bands through the years—from the fondly remembered Reptiles to the Honky Tonk Hippies, to his recent forays jamming on Beatles songs with Chris and Lorin Rowan (and friends) in a group called Rubber Souldiers—he’s also sat in with an amazing range of fine musicians, such as Phil Lesh, Donna the Buffalo, Henry Kaiser, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Ollabelle, the late great Vassar Clements, Jim Lauderdale, The String Cheese Incident, Peter Rowan, and moe., to name just a few.

He has also written songs with a host of others, including Jim Page, Lorin Rowan, and Robert Hunter. And his live repertoire is peppered with an incredibly broad (and unpredictable) range of cover tunes by old and new musical heroes. Pressed to list some of his own songwriting influences not too long ago, David reeled off Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, Steve Goodman, John Prine, CSN, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Holland-Dozier-Holland, Mann & Weil, Carole King, Gram Parsons, Elton John & Bernie Taupin, Robbie Robertson, and the Grateful Dead; quite a list. But he’ll also tell you that in recent years, as he’s toured extensively and played with so many superb musicians at festivals and in other settings, he’s discovered a whole new generation of songwriters and players who are inspiring him.

As both a player and a fan, he understands the indefinable transformative power of music—how it feeds our very life-force, bonds us together in obvious and unseen ways, teaches us, heals us, makes us better citizens of this fragile planet.

As David notes, “I came up in the time when we thought music could change world, and I still think it can—the only way the world can be changed: one person, one soul at a time.”

My friend Erin Scholze gave me a handful of CDs (mostly musicians she works with in her publicity and promotion business, Dream Spider) when I was in Asheville NC in October. The two that I got hooked on are Found a Reason by Mad Tea Party, and Why It’s Needed by Galen Kipar. I just had to share one of Galen’s songs with you.

I made contact with Galen via Facebook, and when I heard he was coming to Northern California to visit his sister for Thanksgiving I invited him to appear on my KPFA show, Dead to the World. Here’s the audio.

Toni Brown was the editor and publisher of Relix Magazine for many years. She has just published Relix: The Book – The Grateful Dead Experience, a compilation of articles, photos, and other material from the Deadhead publication’s long history. Toni and her partner, Ed Munson, are also touring behind a CD titled State of Mind. We crossed paths a couple of times in October, and I grabbed this interview with her at MagnoliaFest in Live Oak, Florida.

Last but certainly not least, big thanks to Charlie Miller for passing along a recently-unearthed soundboard recording from the winter of 1979. For decades, this tour was the stuff of legends because of the great performances that were available only on audience tapes. And what fine audience tapes they are! It’s interesting to hear soundboard recordings after all these years.

Support for the Grateful Dead Hour comes this week from The Jerry Garcia Family LLC, presenting Jerry Garcia Collection, Vol. 2 – Let It Rock. This is the first edition of the Jerry Garcia Band, recorded in November 1975 with the great Nicky Hopkins on keyboards. And from Grateful Dead Productions, announcing Road Trips Vol. 3, No. 1 – the complete show from December 28, 1979, with Brent Mydland at the keyboards. More information on both of these new releases, sample tracks, discussion board and more online at dead.net. And from damnfineday.com, building your music collection one song at a time.

And by the way, we post a show from the Grateful Dead Hour archive on Dead.Net every Wednesday. You can browse or search the GD Hour playlists here – and feel free to request a show!